Thread by @TreehouseFi

Andre Cronje, dubbed ‘Godfather of DeFi”, will be exiting the space according to a tweet by his long-time colleague Anton Nell on 6th March, who will also be joining him.

Out of the loop? Here’s a thread explaining the incident:

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Who is Andre Cronje?

If you’re new to the space: Cronje is one of the most influential and prolific developers in #DeFi. Having held the position of Technical Advisor at @FantomFDN, Cronje’s knowledge in #blockchain technology is profound.

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The experienced developer worked in numerous organizations within the space, contributed to the development of significant projects like @CurveFinance, @FantomFDN, @SushiSwap and founded the widely successful @iearnfinance along with @thekeep3r.

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What’s happening? 😮

On 6 March, a week after Cronje deleted his Twitter account, Nell announced that both of them will be “closing the chapter of contributing to the defi/crypto space”. They’ll also terminate front-end services of about 25 apps and services on 3 April 2022.

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The most notably affected #dApps include: yearn.fi, keep3r.network, multichain.xyz, chainlist.org, bribe.crv.finance and the newest solidly.exchange which has only been launched for some 3 weeks.

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💥Implications:

This caused a huge uproar in the #DeFi / #Crypto community. Many likened it to a massive rugpull. Following the announcement, #tokens associated with the apps and networks developed by the duo started to tank massively 📉

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In the next 24 hours, $FTM fell as much as 20.6%, $YFI fell 13.5%, $KP3R plunged 35.6%, and $SOLID tumbled nearly 70% 😦

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What’s next?

A tweet by @FantomFDN thanked Cronje for all his contributions to #crypto, but also states that “Fantom isn’t and never was a one man team”, and that “there are 40+ people working at Fantom”.

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Another tweet by @bantg who is the lead developer at Yearn Finance states that “Andre hasn’t worked on it for over a year” and that “even if he did, there are 50 full-time people and 140 part-time contributors to back him up”.

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Many in the #DeFi community have since understood that Cronje’s exit will not have as significant an impact on the operations of his projects as they thought it would.

What are your thoughts on this? 🤔

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Regarding the termination of front-end services, a pop-up on yearn.fi states that “The source code is open source, anyone that would like to continue hosting this service is welcome to.”

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Due to the autonomous nature of #dApps, smart contracts will continue to work as engineered as long as they are immutable.

What they are shutting down are the webpages / UIs which make them accessible for people to use.

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How will the #DeFi community move on from here? Here are some things to think about:

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1️⃣ It seems that a great deal of investors’ faith and confidence in a project is still largely dependent on an individual figurehead.

With this substantial amount of reliance on a single developer, can #blockchain networks be fully #decentralized?

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2️⃣ How do you think the fate of #Fantom will play out from here?

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Though we can’t pinpoint the reasons for their departures, #DeFi and #blockchain technology will still forge ahead in their absence.

Skilled developers and architects will continue to enter the space and we definitely expect to see the rise of DeFi in the near future. ✨

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Share your thoughts with us in the comments below! 👇

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